Winter is Coming
Fansided

Torchwood retro review: Children of Earth – Day Three gives us some major shocks

By James Aggas

facebooktwitterreddit

Finally reunited, the Torchwood team start to fight back on Day Three of Children of Earth. But one of them has a terrible secret…

Day Three represents a clear turning point for Torchwood: Children of Earth. As the clear middle episode of the story, it shows the series slowly move from asking many questions to slowly giving us answers. Not all of them, but enough to lead to perhaps one of the best cliffhangers of the series.

After being on the run, divided and completely powerless last episode, it’s nice to see the Torchwood team back together and getting some of their old power back in this episode. Not all of it, but enough to start fighting back with just a little technology. The scene of Jack being back in military clothes and looking seriously darn good is a perfect visual example of this.

Of course, for every inch of ground Torchwood gains, they lose another two inches of it. Jack’s daughter Alice and her son Steven are discovered and very quickly captured by Johnson in this episode.

The more I watch of Johnson, the more I like her as a character. She’s definitely someone who’s never afraid to follow orders, no matter how extreme. But she’s also clearly someone who believes that she’s doing the right thing, which pushes her to make these actions. Her clear understanding that Alice would kill her if she harms her son shows that she’s not without empathy, not completely. She’s just doing what she believes is the right thing to do. She’s a terrifying character, but she’s also one that you can respect, too.

Major shocks

I’m also continually amazed by how great Peter Capaldi is as Frobisher in this series. It’s very, very easy to forget while watching him that this man also played the Twelfth Doctor. Frobisher is a weak man who’s trying to do his best for his country, and the more the series goes on, the more that he’s pushed to the edge. The more you watch him, the more you can’t help but feel some sympathy for him. Especially when he’s so easily used by Prime Minister Brian Green.

There are a large number of moments than can be best described (on a website that doesn’t use swearing, at least,) as “Oh snap!” moments. One great example is Jack finally realizing his own connection to the 456, when he works out why he and his team were targeted in the first place. The look on his face when it all comes together for him is fantastic, and John Barrowman performs it perfectly.

More from Winter is Coming

But the best moment – and arguably one of the best moments of the series – is when the 456 finally reveal what they want:

"We want your children. We will take your children…We want ten per cent of the children of this world."

It’s such a chilling moment, and it’s enough to work as a great cliffhanger on its own. But then we find out that Jack had helped in giving children to the 456 back in 1965. It’s a perfect double-whammy of an ending, and another great example of what made Children of Earth such a fantastic series in the first place.

Next. Children of Earth – Happy tenth anniversary to a controversial series. dark

What did you make of Day Three? Do you remember your reaction to that shocking cliffhanger ending? Let us know in the comments below.

Home/Doctor Who